


After

by Iakobos



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Campaign 1 (Critical Role), hypothetically canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:08:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29369784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iakobos/pseuds/Iakobos
Summary: In the fullness of time, he comes to her, as she knew he would.
Relationships: Keyleth/Kynan Leore, Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Kynan Leore & Vax'ildan
Kudos: 7





	After

**Author's Note:**

> Be aware: I use an awful lot of run-on sentences and unclear pronoun references in this work. This is a stylistic choice, which I explain a bit more in my endnote. I implore you to dive face first into the bent grammar rules here to get absorbed in the mood I believe it can create, and I request that you trust me to bring it all together in the end.

In the fullness of time, he comes to her, as she knew he would.

He is older than the last time she saw him, and as such, he looks noticeably different, the passage of time leaving its mark on him in that burning candle-wick way characteristic of humans, that aging which is their curse and their essence, which kindles the fire of ambition so hotly in their hearts. He wears a beard about his mouth, a bit darker than his hair, which is shorter than she remembers, framing his handsome but serious face in white-blonde strands; he is a bit broader, the last of slender boyhood melted away into the strength of full maturity; and he is a bit wearier as life and its responsibilities weigh down on him. Yet he reminds her so much of him as he approaches, despite the difference in race and the otherwise divergent features. They share the same lethal grace, the same lightness of step, the same furtive, watchful set about the eyes, the same quick clever hands, and a hint of the same mirth about the mouth, though his face is marked by more frown lines than his had ever been, even at the end. And of course there is the belt, modeled after the one he had given to him, the serpent’s mouth clasping the tail in an Ouroboros for the buckle, the eyes emerald green. The motif is on his personal banner, too – the crest of Whitestone with the Sun Tree encircled by a black snake with emerald eyes, fangs bared. And naturally, daggers (he still holds the Keen Dagger he gave him all those years ago, which so often she had witnessed gored with enemy blood, gleaming wetly with death, flashing in his hands) – but only two, and he wears a saber on his belt, which he had never done. She looks briefly for a firearm, but does not see one, so she supposes Lord de Rolo is as immobile as ever on the subject, enforcing his taboo on firearms leaving Whitestone with futile vigilance, knowing it will fail in the end. She says, “Captain Leore, what a pleasant surprise! I and the Air Ashari welcome you to Zephra.” She pauses, a hair too long, the formalities feeling awkward and malformed as they leave her lips as they always do even after all this time, aware of the retinue waiting patiently behind him for her to finish her greeting. “What brings you out all this way, Captain?”

He smiles wryly, with more bitterness and irony than he had ever smiled with, but with good humor nonetheless. “The Council and the Lord and Ladies de Rolo have granted me the honor of serving as ambassador of Whitestone to Zephra for a time. And they decided that it was high time I took a vacation.” A pause, and his grin becomes more affectionate. “The Lord and Ladies send their love, as do the children. The little lord often wonders when his favorite steed will make another visit, and the young lady misses her aunt Keyleth.”

She laughs, perhaps too loud, remembering little Freddie shrieking with laughter as he rode on her back as Minxie. He looks at her, warm, hungry, piercing, the small smile on his face growing yet warmer at her mirth, and meeting his eyes she knows. She flicks her eyes away from his, glancing over the small armed band that follows in his wake, feeling the curling of anxiety, guilt, excitement, desire, her mouth suddenly growing dry, her neck feeling hot. She clears her throat. “Well, welcome once again to Zephra, Captain. Derrig, please arrange fitting quarters for these fine gentlemen. And baths. I’m sure the journey was wearying.”

He signals silently to a man behind him whom she does not recognize, and the man leads the soldiers past, following Derrig into the village. She feels his eyes again, searching and warm. He steps close to her once his troops have passed them by. “It is good to see you, Keyleth,” he says quietly.

Her mouth is dry again, looking into his face, similar but different, brown eyes holding the same guarded set as his hazel eyes once had, the broader, bearded jaw held in the same tentative tilt as his sharp, narrow one once so often had been, the same secret ghost of affection playing lightly around his firm, full-lipped mouth as it once had on his delicate, thin-lipped mouth. She swallows again. “You too. Kynan.”

He stands near her a moment more, expectant, with a suggestion of forward motion in his posture, wanting, watching her. She flicks her eyes to meet his, and looks away, and looks again. “I’ll see you tonight. For supper!” she says quickly. “We’ll have a meal to welcome you all, of course. Um.”

He smiles at her, gently. “I look forward to it.” He hesitantly places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes, before walking away like he had done so often before, leaving her with the view from the mountain top spread out before her, and again she knows.

She says, “Fuck.”

XXXXX

He does not know what all he feels as he leaves her there. Disappointment, of course, tinged with lingering anticipation and desire; certainly some frustration and perhaps some anger that she would not even embrace him as a friend; and sadness that there is still much work to do. But there is hope under all of that, and determination.

Clos says something he does not hear. “What?” he says, returning to the moment.

“How fares the Tempest?” repeats Clos, Kynan’s lieutenant, falling in step alongside him once he catches up with his men.

“Lady Keyleth seems well,” he replies in a clipped tone.

“Aye, that is fine,” Clos muses. They walk a few more steps. Clos eyes Kynan, and Kynan feels the tingle of scrutiny on his neck. “And how fares Captain Leore, sir?”

Kynan sighs. “He is well. Forgive me, Lieutenant. The journey has left me… tired, and dour.”

“All’s fair, Captain,” he says, clapping him on the back. “I have been better company myself. It will be blessed to bathe soon.” Clos surveys the landscape of the mountaintop, wonder in his eyes. “Gods, this place… it’s lovelier than I had thought it would be, given the starkness of the Cliffkeeps. It is serene, I think.”

For the first time, Kynan takes in the sight of Zephra, and finds Clos’ observation true. The expanse of blue sky stretches around them in all directions, the beaming light of the noonday sun bleaching the surrounding clouds snow-white. Around them the peaks of the Cliffkeeps reach into the sky; where from lower altitudes they had seemed unassailable, now they stand at roughly eye-line around them, and the blue vault above the height of the peaks is limitless, dizzying, and exhilarating all at once. And yet there is a stillness, a quiet, sliding along gently under the happy sounds of a prosperous people: a home-feeling of comfort. He thinks of her, and maybe he felt it in her too, underneath all the roiling emotions that have always been one of her defining characteristics. She seemed to move as if she were sure here, underneath her unsteady, nervous twitches. He thinks, _This place is good for her._ He says, “Yes.”

Clos eyes him from under his bushy brown brows. His mustache twitches, and he says, quietly, his strong hand grasping Kynan’s bicep to stop their motion, “Captain. Kynan. I don’t think you ought to fret so much. I’ve been wed to Alsie now for fifteen years now, and together for twenty. Some of those years were hard ones: she and I’ve hurt each other plenty. But…” he sighs, reaching for words. “All I mean is, whatever happens, there’s life after pain. And it’s worth it, to do things that might hurt again. I know you probably don’t need my encouragement to go after what you want now… What I mean is, go after it, and be ready to live on both sides of it.”

“I know,” Kynan says, meeting Clos’ eyes seriously.

“Yar, I know you know.” He strokes his mustache and steps back, contemplating an overhead cloud. “She’s very beautiful.”

He says, “I know.”

XXXXX

As she said, there is a feast that night. There is mead and wine which the Ashari make themselves, strong and delicious, to accompany the wild, rough, hearty food. She sits at the head of the grand table, playing the role of hostess as befits her station, nibbling at the food and drinking the wine and mead perhaps too deeply, trying to shake the apprehension about what she knows. The man she did not recognize is named Clos, and after the first courses conclude he, boldly drunk, stands on a table and begins to regale the citizens of Zephra with tales of the Black Snake of Whitestone’s exploits. Keyleth had been present when Kynan won the name, and as Clos tells the tale she remembers those days, the violence and the blood and the biting cold, the army at the gates of Whitestone screaming, the frost giants and hill giants and men dying, changing forms so much that she forgot what her true form felt like, Vex’halia, heavily pregnant with Freddie and unable to enter the fray, furious in her fear of losing anyone else like she’d, they’d, all lost him. She remembers the miserable nights in that dead of winter crawling by as she poured her last reserves of strength into the mangled bodies of freezing men, finally collapsing into her bed with the groans of the wounded filling the night, spent and weeping.

And Kynan had been there, leading the Riflemen with grim purpose, inspiring fatalistic determination and grit in all who saw him quietly stalking the parapets and glowering at the enemy camp. He was sometimes beside her, fighting silently in those horrible melees atop the parapets, teeth bared, daggers flashing, rifle exploding, saber hacking, all into that tide of screaming flesh that was the Enemy. And she remembers the day he won the name the Black Snake, when he singlehandedly slew the herald of Kliveliskjele Wyrm-Eater, silencing forever that horrible mocking voice that had assailed the city walls each night. She remembers watching him, his body moving with that uncanny swiftness which his once had, his hair (long then, and he had darkened it) streaming behind him with the same arrogance and beauty, but quieter, more reserved, like-and-unlike her lost love as he always was in her eyes. She had felt those first stirrings of attraction and guilt then, seeing him standing there in victory, and had tried to push them away, to bury herself in war.

“Then, swift as a serpent, the Captain leapt into the air and slashed the giant’s hamstrings! Down fell that mocker, crashing with a shrill shout, and up leapt Kynan onto his chest and in a blink the creature’s throat was slashed!” exclaims Clos, gesturing proudly to Kynan, who looks composed but abashed at the praise. Clos sloshes more mead into his mouth, golden droplets shining in his beard. “Oh, how we cheered! I’ll tell any man that that ‘twas that stroke which broke the giant’s morale, and bolstered ours to the final victory! A man to kill a frost giant in single combat! We had nary seen the like!” He turns to Keyleth, mead sloshing in his hewn stone goblet. “And need I even mention your Lady Keyleth? The Thousand-Formed, the Storm’s Eye, the Red Ruin, the Voice of the Tempest? How she and our Vox Machina smote Kliveliskjele to the ground? How…”

She stops listening, knowing the tale already. She looks about the room at her people, sees Derrig and his family and her father and all the others smiling, laughing, well-fed, and she feels pride that they are her own, that she is one of them and that she leads them. She realizes again that she loves them; that soft fierce feeling that comes to her at the strangest moments, reminding her why she was chosen, why she was meant to rule after all, fit to rule even in those times when she sobs bitter tears into her solitary pillow because nothing feels right and nothing is right, not even just to make her feel like a fool for crying. That hot surge of tenderness, of _Oh, I’d kill for them, kill for any single one_ , passionate and irrational and true.

XXXXX

He sees her, seated at the head of her people, sitting there, beautiful, beholding the passion in her eyes as she casts her gaze over her people. _Gods_ , he thinks, _she doesn’t look a day over twenty._ He looks a little older than her now; not old (he is only twenty-five), but just his age, and older than she looks at her twenty-seven years. He sees it there in her already-clinging youth, the blessing of longevity which would let her see all her family and friends die, and then their children and their children’s children and himself, leaving her young. He ached for her, for the promise of pain which lurks always in every smiling face she sees. He thinks, _Perhaps it would be kinder to stay away_ _to spare her the pain of losing me not just as a friend and link to her past but as a lover too, another lover gone and left her to live on, the second dead lover in a series of dead lovers which must only grow longer as the centuries wind on and on,_ but he knows he will not. He sees her, arrested in her peak, the full bloom of youth caught there for decades to come, her hair blazing red and glinting in the fairy-lights, the snow-white flesh speckled lightly with freckles, the tattoos standing boldly out against her skin, marking her power and authority, her flashing, open smile and her girlish laughter.

And she sees him, and he looks in her eyes, and she knows, and he knows.

XXXXX

It began in Whitestone, in the midst of that terrible war. She tried to ignore the stirrings of attraction when they first bloomed; but nevertheless, one night, not long after he slew Kliveliskjele’s herald and earned the name the Black Snake, she found herself at his door. When he opened to her knock, he looked so much like him with his hair blackened and his jaw shaved. In her mind’s eye she saw his moment of victory on the field, his gut-dropping leap onto the giant’s chest, where in a razor sharp flash of daggers he had torn open its throat with that same lethal grace that he had once possessed. “Keyleth?” he said, surprised, a little nervous; she saw him glance over her body, covered only by a thin gown, before quickly slanting his eyes downward and away. He blushed.

She did not trust herself to speak, so she did not. She reached out to him, setting her hand against his cheek. She walked forward and he walked backward, eyes riveted to her. She kicked the door behind her, and it _thunk_ ed shut, perhaps a little too loud in the late evening, but she ignored the brief flare of embarrassment and kissed him. He froze for a short moment. Then it was lips and tongues and hands, hot desperate scrambling for mutual nudity, urgent need to feel flesh against flesh. And he was so like him as she revealed her body to him, earnest and gentle, looking at her with that same awe, touching her with the same tenderness he once had, the same reserved, grasping desperation and intensity in his touches, and of course there was his hair which he had made so like his had once been. And when he pushed into her there was that same stretch, the same feeling of fullness and closeness, and when she came apart she thought _Vax, Vax!_ as he followed her into bliss.

Later she hated herself, wracked with guilt, feeling dirty, low, cold, and alone. She jerked away from his body where she lay in his arms, leaving his bed, unable to look in his eyes, and said “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She turned to leave, trying to keep the tears from falling, thinking _Oh, Vax,_ running, ashamed and lonely.

But he caught her arm. “No,” he said. She saw something in his eyes, hungry and vulnerable and terrifying. She saw determination and longing, as if a secret desire of his heart was within reach. “Stay. Please.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She pulled away, not wanting to, wanting the warmth of his hands, thinking _I’m so fucked up,_ and left him staring after her. She wept in her bed that night, swearing to herself never to so much as look at Kynan again.

The next day was a tenth Hell of shame. She avoided Kynan as best as she could, trying to always be in different places. But it was unnecessary; he did not attempt to approach her. From what little she saw of him he appeared to be spending his day stalking about the parapets a bit more darkly than usual, which was no great change. And as it was a quiet day for once in the midst of war, Keyleth had little else to do but stew in her guilt.

She supposed she held out rather well, all things considered; she lasted a full three days before once again knocking on his door in the middle of the night. And when he opened for her again, it had already begun.

They were lovers, in secret. They were not together often; only when Keyleth made trips to Whitestone. She found herself finding excuses to go more frequently, to steal more moments of secret pleasure with him in the depths of midnight or in secret trysts under the sun. They continued that way for the better part of a year. The guilt that she had felt after that first stirring of attraction for him never departed, though she tried her best to pay it no mind. But she could not forget that sometimes she imagined it was Vax and not Kynan that touched her and brought her to pleasure, Vax’s arms that held her, and Vax’s long black hair that lay fanned out beside her on his pillow. She would weep, sometimes, after she returned home, weep in her somehow still raw grief and in her guilt, and she would resolve to stop this the next time she saw him. But whenever she felt his hands or saw the secret pleasure in his eyes or smelled the warm, living scent of him, she found she could not. And it seemed there was something in it that Kynan wanted to hide too: Kynan never suggested to her that they tell anyone, and neither did she. It was an unspoken agreement, an acknowledgement of the something that loomed between them.

Eventually, the guilt and the shame wore away at her, like sand scraped over a raw, bleeding wound, and she could not take it any longer. She couldn’t look in his eyes when she said, during the vulnerability of post-coital nudity, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.”

As she had come to expect, he was silent for a long time, and she still could not look at him, dreading to see the betrayed hurt in his eyes, the screaming question “Why? Why can’t we have this happiness? What have I done to make you want to leave me? What have I failed to be?” so she doesn’t look, staring instead at her trembling hands.

When he finally spoke, he said, “Keyleth. Look at me,” and he gently tilted her face so that she was forced to meet his eyes. She winced and turned away from the pain there, but he said again “Look at me,” so she did, blinking through the tears. There were tears in his eyes as well, unshed, glistening in the soft candlelight, evidence of her cruelty and her folly in ever starting this. He said, “You’ve got to tell me why. You owe me that much at least. Please.”

“It’s because of me,” she said, voice ragged yet flat with spent emotion. “I’m fucked. I’m fucked up and I’m using you.” She looked at him, met his eyes, said “When I look at you, I can’t help but see Vax. Even when you’re different, you’re like him. And sometimes… sometimes I imagine that you’re him.” Her tears pour down afresh. “I’ve been using you to commit emotional necrophilia with my dead boyfriend and I just cannot do it anymore. I can’t do it to you anymore. You deserve someone who loves you for yourself, not… me. And I’m so sorry that I’m hurting you. But I… I just couldn’t live with myself anymore.”

Once again she looked away to sob into her hands, waiting, hating herself and her weakness. But he was silent for so long that she looked again, and his eyes, _his eyes_ , not angry, not hating her or disgusted, but downcast, afraid, _ashamed_ , guilty, the same look she had seen so often in her accusing mirror for a year. She gasped, and he said, staring at his bed, “Sometimes I imagine I’m him too. Sometimes I can feel his name in you and I want to… to reach into you and take it, wear it. To vanish into him.” He looked at her, pain and shame wracking him. “I’ve been using you, too. To try to be like him and not like myself. To feel like he’s still here. I’m sorry.”

They were silent for a long while, not weeping anymore, just staring, shocked, naked, not touching, not able to look at each other. Sometime, she said, “Were there ever moments where you weren’t trying to be him?” her voice raw and ragged.

He said, in a choked whisper, “Yes.” He looked to her. “Were there ever moments when you didn’t imagine him?”

She met his eyes, and said “Yes.”

He sighed, and nodded. “What should we do?” he asked quietly.

She said, “We can’t use each other anymore.”

He said, “Yes.”

She said, “I think… I think maybe we should take some time apart and think. Because maybe we both feel something that’s not bound up in him.”

He said, “How long?”

She said, “Three months. Let’s take three months to be apart, and then we’ll talk and figure this shit out.”

He said, “Okay.”

And so they were apart. The first month was hard, and she wept for the lack of him, and for the lack of them. Sometimes she felt like he had gone again, blowing away in a final goodbye to them, feathers in the wind. It hurt, it hurt, and she didn’t want to feel like this, and the second month was past and they had not spoken beyond formality when she went to visit, and the third and she found herself avoiding him, running away from the hurt and desire she saw there when she did not approach him, and then three became four and then five and she could not bear to face him, face his burning, longing eyes, wanting to talk to her but waiting for her, and he had cut all his hair off and began to grow out a beard, and she had grown accustomed to the cold loneliness of her bed, not wanting to think of it, and things were getting busy in Zephra so she visited Whitestone less, and less, and it was six and then seven and then ten, and she’d only visited Whitestone twice in five months. “We miss you,” Vex’ahlia had said on the last visit. “It’s just gotten so busy here lately,” she said, lying, and then it was twelve, a full year, and then she knew that now he would come to her, she knew, she knew, she knew, and she was afraid and lonely and wanting.

XXXXX

The feast is over. She is in her chambers, waiting. She imagines him, waiting for sleep to fall on Zephra, then moving with that silent grace so like his used to be, sliding into shadows quietly to avoid drink-addled eyes, quickly making his careful way to her, as she knew he would.

She is pacing, wringing her hands, thinking _Any moment now he will begin. He is coming,_ wondering _Will I be naked when he comes for me? Oh._ She sees her bed where she sleeps every night, where once she and he had laid and loved together all those years ago, and he is so much like him, even once he had stopped trying to be like him and was just himself, and she says “Oh, Vax. Oh, Vax,” imagining she and he lying together in the bed they had once shared. “Fuck,” she says, feeling guilt, anticipation, shame, desire, loss, grief, loneliness. She feels wetness on her cheek and wetness between her thighs. She sobs, once. “Oh.”

XXXXX

He glides along the silent pathways of Zephra under the black moon, stars shining brightly down upon him, and he thinks of her. Watching her as he sits with his men, noticing her anxious glances at him from across the room, glances tinged with the familiar longing despite the obvious stress and fear and guilt. The way her lips looked around the rim of her goblet. With the drink in him he had wanted to crush those lips in a passionate kiss, finally dispelling the mutual unspoken secrecy under which they had labored for so long. But he restrained himself, knowing, thinking _Later, later._

And now his heart races with anticipation as her simple wooden house comes into view, with the snowdrops and daisies adorning the doorposts, the birds’ nests in the windows. He effortlessly pulls himself to the second story balcony, as quiet as a whisper. He hears a raven call as he enters her home, sharp and anachronistic in the midnight air.

He slips into her bedroom, gentle as the breeze. She has not heard him. She is facing away from him, candlelight casting gently flickering shadows in the hollows of her back, glinting in her hair. He sees tension in the set of her shoulders, taught stiffness. He feels his heart pounding in his chest, his mouth going dry. He is trembling. “Keyleth,” he says, his voice a quiet raspy whisper.

XXXXX

When she hears his voice, she turns to him. He is standing there, unsure, wanting, looking into her eyes with that depth of vulnerability, so like him and yet not like him. And when she sees him, she knows.

Then the fear is gone. Her shaking hands still, and her eyes, damp with tears, begin to smile. She says his name, “Kynan,” sweetly, and meets his eyes.

He is on her then. He moves as quickly as a blink, closing the distance between them silently, almost with no motion, and he kisses her. She feels his lips, his tongue, his teeth, feeling the trembling intensity barely controlled as his strong hands encircle her waist, bulky and sure against the impossible slenderness of her half-elven heritage. He tastes of mead and wine, and she moans into his mouth. He runs a hand up her side, his battle-hardened palm dragging against her smooth skin, catching her bottom lip in his teeth. A ragged gasp forces its way out of his throat when she bites back and forces her tongue in his mouth. He pulls away, leaving her panting, and drags his teeth along her jaw, finding the sensitive skin just behind her ear, and when she trembles he laughs quickly, quietly, just as she remembers; her hands clutch at his shoulders, and she sighs, long and low. He moves his hand to her hip, and pulls up her tunic, her snowy skin breaking out into goosebumps in anticipation, and he reaches for her breast, her soft flesh yielding against his fingers. She trembles again and says “Oh, I – oh, fuck, –"

“Gods,” he gasps into her ear, “I’ve missed you so.”

With effort, she pulls a little away, and takes his face in her hands, smiling, looking in his eyes. “I have too, Kynan.” He smiles, and tears fall, and she sees he wants to kiss her again and she wants it too, but she says “Wait, wait,” taking his hands in hers and cradling them to her breast. “I want this,” she says. “But… not yet. Tomorrow. I think we should talk tomorrow. We promised we’d talk a long time ago, and I think we should do what we said. And… I don’t want to be drunk, I think. I still am, a little,” she finishes with a giggle.

He smiles, laughing briefly along with her as he takes a deep breath. He clings to her hands desperately his knuckles turning white as he grips her. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead upon hers, sharing her air, breathing deeply. She can feel the waning hardness of him against her, and she wants to touch him but does not. He opens his eyes, joy and uncertainty blending in a riot of feeling. “You’re sure?”

She kisses him on the cheek, chastely. “I’m sure,” she says. “Tomorrow, come find me.”

XXXXX

In the morning, he looks for her. She hadn’t told him where she would be, so he searches. The first place he looks is the tree where there are sometimes ravens. Naturally, she is there. She is sitting on the cliffside looking out into the open sky. She is twirling a black feather in her hands when he sits down beside her. This high in the mountains a breeze always blows, and it causes her hair to whip around her face beautifully. He settles beside her silently, but she is not startled. He waits.

She says, “I’m sorry I avoided you for so long. I was scared.” She looks at him. “Will you forgive me for that?” Her green eyes are focused on him, unflinching, so unlike when he arrived just hours ago. He holds her gaze and nods.

She says “Thank you.” He sees her hands fidget a little with the feather, and she looks back over the mountain range spread out before them, breathing to steady herself. “It still hurts so much when I think about how he’s gone. Not as much as it did in the beginning, but it still hurts.”

“It does for me too,” he says quietly, “even though I never really got as close to him as I wanted. He was…”

“You loved him,” she says.

“I… I imagined he was like my brother. I wanted to be like him for so long. I tried so hard to be in his place after he was gone. He was everything I wanted to be. So in a way, I loved him.”

“You are like him, Kynan. You are good and kind and you are a hero too.” She looks him in the eyes again. He cannot speak for the emotion. She takes his hand. “We used one another, before. That’s why we stopped. Then for the longest time I thought I was warped, that I’d always be trying to find him in everyone, and always be disappointed, and always hurt. I hated that I hurt you. I was afraid I couldn’t ever do anything else. But I don’t think that’s true anymore. I don’t believe I am doomed to be miserable and cause misery anymore. It’s funny,” she says with a bitter chuckle, “I thought I’d learned that lesson already. I guess some things you’ve just got to learn over and over and over, in different ways each time.”

She falls silent, still holding his hand. He is stroking her knuckles gently. He speaks after a while. “So what does this mean?”

“It means I want to be with you, Kynan. But I think we need to mourn him together first. I thought I’d already done my grieving. And I have, I guess. But maybe we need to do it again this way, together, to let him go. Can we do that, please?” Her eyes are shining with unshed tears as she grasps both his hands. He nods.

“Okay.” Her lip begins to tremble, and a tear falls. “I miss Vax. I miss the way he looked at me, the way he touched me. I miss his mischief and his pranks. I miss his earnestness and his intensity. He was so much to me. I loved him, and I love him still. I wish he was still here.” Her voice breaks off into a whisper, tears falling freely. He holds her as she sobs in to his shoulder, stroking her hair.

He says, “I miss Vax too. I admired him so much, always. He seemed so sure, even when he really wasn’t. I admired the way he always tried to do his best, no matter what. I was jealous of what he had with all of you, the brotherhood I thought I would never have. I wish he was still here, so he could protect us all, and so he could live in the world he saved.”

She says, “He loved children. He was so sweet with them. When I saw him with them… I had never really thought much about having children before. There had never been time to think of it, and I’d always been afraid to look too far ahead. But he made me think about that for the first time. He made the idea of that responsibility seem so joyful. With him, I could imagine the future and not feel eaten up with fear of loss.”

He says, “When I was a kid, I saw him and I knew for the first time the sort of person I wanted to be. I had never seriously imagined life outside of the butcher shop in Emon. But there was something about him that made me feel like I could make my life something more than what I had always thought was my destiny. He made me hope for a better life. Hells, he made the life I have now possible. I think I’d still be in that butcher shop in Emon if it wasn’t for him.”

She says, “I miss the way he always wanted to protect me, even when he knew I did not need it anymore. He reminded me that I was a warrior too. When we fought together, I always felt safer knowing he would be by my side, even though that might make no sense. Maybe it was just that he was there, and wanted to be.”

He says, “I miss his danger. I wanted to be dangerous like that, so I could be respected like him. Even if he called himself a fuck-up, he was lethal and I respected that so much. You’d watch him move and it was… like magic. He was so in control of what his body did, and it made me think he must have mastered himself too. I wanted to be like that. I still do.”

She smiles, and says “You know, I think you’ve gotten there now. I look at you and see the same danger, even though you move differently. And during the war… I felt safe when you were beside me.”

“Really?” he asks, wondering.

“Really,” she says, pecking him on the cheek. He smiles.

They sit for a while, feet dangling off the cliffside, watching the ravens wheeling above and below them, sometimes talking, reminiscing, laughing together. Eventually she stands, and he follows. She holds out the raven feather in her hand, the filaments moving in the breeze, her hair blowing behind her, and she lets it go. They watch as the winds carry it pinwheeling in the sky, up, up, never falling, till it is swallowed up in the blue expanse before them. He holds her, his arm around her waist. She clasps his right hand in her two hands and brings it to her mouth, kissing it. She says, “Goodbye, Vax’ildan.”

He says, “Goodbye, Vax’ildan.”

Then they turn in silent communication and kiss each other under the tree as the gentle wind blows.

After, they are happy together with the time they are given.

**Author's Note:**

> I began writing this piece approaching two years ago, riding the inspiration I felt after completing my Master's English course on William Faulkner. I attempted to emulate elements of his prose style here, resulting in the stylistic incorporation of run-on sentences, unclear pronoun references, and italics. I think I am pretty well satisfied with the prose style. On the level of the story itself, I have a few reservations. I feel that one could fairly criticize this piece in saying that it lacks dramatic tension because the primary conflict is resolved rather quickly, in observing that my two main characters are perhaps annoyingly weepy, and in postulating that Keyleth and Kynan are maybe a bit out of character, though I feel I have plenty of room to create my interpretation of Kynan given that there is not much canon material regarding his personality. But overall I think I am proud of this work, and I really wanted to see it posted and behind me. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I hope the relationship I've pretty much invented here is intriguing to you; please do take it and write a story of your own about it if you are so inclined.


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